Atlantic salmon farming relies heavily on wild-caught forage fish for feed, creating a welfare and sustainability concern for the billions of small fish reduced to fishmeal and fish oil annually.
The welfare dimension of forage fish use in salmon farming extends the welfare concern beyond the farmed salmon to the billions of wild fish caught to feed them. Forage fish like anchovies and herring are caught in vast purse seine nets, brought aboard in enormous volumes, and pumped into factory vessels — a process with no individual welfare consideration for animals that may be capable of suffering. The environmental dimension compounds the welfare concern: reduction of forage fish populations weakens the food web that supports seabirds and marine predators. Novel feed ingredients like black soldier fly larval meal and algae oil can replace marine ingredients, simultaneously improving feed sustainability and reducing forage fish mortality.